The present invention generally relates to an electronic equipment control system, an electronic equipment control method, a reproducing apparatus, an output apparatus, and a transmission medium. To be more particular, the present invention relates to an electronic equipment control system, an electronic equipment control method, a reproducing apparatus, an output apparatus, and a transmission medium that are capable of controlling equipment having an interactive user interface by a simple device.
The AV equipment control commands (AV/C commands) of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 1394 xe2x80x9cHigh Performance Serial Bus Standardxe2x80x9d (hereafter referred to as the 1394 digital interface as appropriate) are adapted to send a command to a target equipment unit to put the same into a desired state, enabling automatic control thereof.
For example, a control command PLAYBACK PAUSE puts a target equipment unit into a state in which playback is paused. On the contrary, an ordinary PAUSE command as used in an infrared remote commander only tells a target equipment unit that the PAUSE key of the remote commander has been pressed. Receiving the PAUSE command, the equipment unit executes a predetermined operation according to its state.
Sometimes, human operations must be transmitted directly to a target equipment unit without resorting to automatic control. For example, when moving a cursor displayed on a menu screen vertically or horizontally, positioning the cursor at a desired menu item displayed on the screen, and then operating a predetermined button to select that menu item, the cursor is moved vertically or horizontally, the position is determined, the selected menu item is recognized by the controller, and a command for putting the equipment into a required state is issued by the related art AV/C command system.
Therefore, the controller receives the signals from all equipment units connected through the digital interface and decodes the received signals to recognize the selection made on the menu screen.
FIG. 4 illustrates an example of the constitution of a related art AV system. As shown, a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) drive 100 and an intelligent display device 200 are interconnected through the 1394 digital interface. As will be described later, the intelligent display device 200 sends a command in compliance with the SBP-2 (Serial Bus Protocol 2) specifications to the DVD drive 100 and the DVD drive 100 sends DVD data such as video data, audio data, sub-picture data, or system data to the intelligent display device 200.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an example of constitutions of the intelligent display device 200 and the DVD drive 100. A remote commander signal receiver 31 constituting the intelligent display device 200 receives a remote commander signal coming from the remote commander 300 on infrared radiation for example and supplies a command specified by the received signal to a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 28 to be described later. According to the command supplied from the remote commander signal receiver 31, the CPU 28 executes specified control on the intelligent display device 200.
An interface 21 extracts video data, sub-picture data, and audio data from a packet transmitted from the DVD drive 100 through the 1394 digital interface and supplies the video data to a video decoder 22, the sub-picture data to a sub-picture decoder 23, and the audio data to the audio data decoder 24.
The packet also includes information about such as a menu. An I/F 21 supplies this information to a DRAM 25. The CPU 28 reads the information about such as a menu from the DRAM 25 and supplies the information to an OSD (On Screen Display) generator 27. The OSD generator 27, based on the information supplied from the CPU 28, generates a menu screen composed of predetermined character strings, graphics, icons, and so on and supplies the generated menu screen to an NTSC/PAL encoder 26.
The video decoder 22 decodes the video data supplied from the I/F 21 and supplies the decoded data to an NTSC/PAL encoder. The sub-picture decoder 23 decodes the sub-picture data supplied from the I/F 21 and supplies the decoded data to the NTSC/PAL encoder 26. The audio decoder 24 decodes the audio data supplied from the I/F 21 and supplies the decoded data to a D/A converter 30. The D/A converter 30 converts the digital audio data supplied from the audio decoder 24 into an analog audio signal and outputs the same.
The NTSC/PAL encoder 26 merges the video data supplied from the video decoder 22, the sub-picture data supplied from the sub-picture decoder 23, and the data corresponding to the menu screen supplied from the OSD generator 27, converts the merged data into a digital signal corresponding to an NTSC video signal, and supplies this signal to a D/A converter 29. The D/A converter 29 converts the digital signal supplied from the NTSC/PAL encoder 26 into an analog signal and outputs the same.
On the other hand, a servo 7 constituting the DVD drive 100 controls a driver 8 by way of a CPU 6, rotating a motor 9. The CPU 6 controls the components of the DVD drive 100. An optical pickup 2 radiates light such as a laser beam onto a disc 1 and receives the reflected light therefrom to read signals recorded on the disc 1.
An amplifier 3 amplifies the signal read by the optical pickup 2 and supplies the amplified signal to a demodulator/error corrector 4. The demodulator/error corrector 4 demodulates the signal supplied from the amplifier 3, performs error correction on the demodulated signal, and supplies the resultant signal to an I/F 10 through a buffer 5.
The I/F 10 forms the signal supplied through the buffer 5 into a packet compatible with the 1394 digital interface and transmits this packet to the intelligent display device 200 through the 1394 digital interface.
The following describes the operations of the above-mentioned devices. The servo 7 controls the driver 8 by way of the CPU 6 to drive the motor 9. The motor 9 rotates the disc 1. From the optical pickup 2, a laser beam is radiated under the control of the CPU 6 onto the recording surface of the disc 1. The laser beam reflected from the recording surface of the disc 1 is received by a photodetector constituting the optical pickup 2 to be converted into an electrical signal, which is supplied to the amplifier 3.
The signal supplied to the amplifier 3 is amplified to be supplied to the demodulator/error corrector 4. The amplified signal supplied to the demodulator/error corrector is demodulated and error-corrected to be supplied to the I/F 10 through the buffer 5. The signal supplied to the I/F 10 is formed into a packet compatible with the 1394 digital interface to be transmitted to the intelligent display device 200 through the 1394 digital interface.
The packet supplied to the intelligent display device 200 is converted by the I/F 21 into the original digital data. The video data included in this signal is supplied to the video decoder 22 and the sub-picture data included in this signal is supplied to the sub-picture decoder 23. The audio data included in this signal is supplied to the audio decoder 24. The information about such as a menu included in this signal is supplied to the DRAM 25 to be stored therein.
The video data supplied to the video decoder 22 is decoded into the original video data, which is supplied to the NTSC/PAL encoder 26. The sub-picture data supplied to the sub-picture decoder 23 is decoded into the original sub-picture data, which is supplied to the NTSC/PAL encoder 26. The audio data supplied to the audio decoder 24 is decoded into the original audio data, which is supplied to the D/A converter 30. The D/A converter 30 converts the audio data supplied from the audio decoder 24 into an analog audio signal, which is then outputted.
The information about such as a menu stored in the DRAM 25 is read by the CPU 28 to be supplied to the OSD generator 27. The OSD generator 27 generates a menu screen from the information about such as a menu supplied from the CPU 28 and supplies the data corresponding to the generated menu screen to the NTSC/PAL encoder 26.
The video data, the sub-picture data, and the data corresponding to the menu screen are merged in the NTSC/PAL encoder 26 into data compatible with NTSC or PAL. The resultant NTSC or PAL data is supplied to the D/A converter 29. The D/A converter 29 converts the NTSC or PAL data supplied from the NTSC/PAL encoder 26 into an analog video data, which is then outputted.
For example, as shown in FIG. 4, it is assumed that a menu screen having three selection items is shown on the intelligent display device 200 and a cursor is positioned at the beginning of the third item. In this system, file access of the DVD drive 100 is all controlled by the intelligent display device 200, so that the intelligent display device 200 recognizes the contents of the currently displayed menu screen.
In the above-mentioned state, when the remote commander 300 is operated to move the cursor up xe2x80x9cCURSOR UP,xe2x80x9d a remote commander signal indicative of the cursor-up operation is transmitted on infrared radiation. The remote commander signal receiver 31 of the intelligent display device 200 converts the signal received from the remote commander 300 into the command and supplies the same to the CPU 28. The CPU 28 recognizes, from the command supplied from the remote commander signal receiver 31, that the selected item is an item one step over the third item, namely the selected item is the second item in the menu. Then, the CPU 28 controls the OSD generator 27, moves the cursor displayed on the menu screen upward by one position and displays the cursor at the beginning of the second item.
When the remote commander 300 is operated again in the above-mentioned state to indicate execution (xe2x80x9cEXECxe2x80x9d) of the selection, a remote commander signal made up of an xe2x80x9cEXECxe2x80x9d command is transmitted from the remote commander 300. The remote commander signal receiver 31 of the intelligent display device 200 converts the signal received from the remote commander 300 into the command and supplies the same to the CPU 28. The CPU 28 recognizes, from the command supplied from the remote commander signal receiver 31, that selection of the second item at which the cursor is currently positioned has been established.
In order to execute the processing specified by the selected second item, the CPU 28 checks which address of the disc 1 loaded in the DVD drive 100 is to be accessed. Then, the CPU 28 sends a PC control command specified with the determined address, a SCSI-on-SBP2 for example, to the DVD drive 100 through the 1394 digital interface, executing reliable control.
As described above, the controller side must receive the signals of all equipment units interconnected through the digital interface and decode the received signals to recognize an item selected on the menu screen, thereby increasing the load on the controller side.
The display monitor as an AV equipment unit is not always an intelligent display device as mentioned above. The primary application of a digital device is to decode signals recorded on a digital VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) such as a DV (Digital Video) and a D-VHS (Digital VHS), monitor these signals, and receive digital broadcasting.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to control interactive information recording media such as the DVD by use of a simple digital display device.